- The Little Foxes (1941) movie review summary: Bette Davis heads a flawless ensemble in William Wyler and Lillian Hellman’s masterful big-screen adaptation of the latter’s 1939 stage hit, which shows that greed and power lust were the driving forces behind the great and unscrupulous minds that built the United States.
The Little Foxes (1941) movie review: Bette Davis and William Wyler collaboration is 1 of the best releases of the studio era
To not choose Orson Welles’ revolutionary Citizen Kane as the Best Motion Picture of 1941 is to commit an unforgivable act of cinematic sacrilege. Whether bravely or madly, this reviewer’s pick is another title: William Wyler and Lillian Hellman’s retelling of the latter’s scathing attack on American Family Values and Valuables, The Little Foxes.
Originally staged at Broadway’s National Theatre in 1939, The Little Foxes revolves around a deceptively simple plot: In a Southern town at the turn of the 20th century, the aristocratic Regina Giddens, whose husband, Horace, is a semi-invalid, concocts a scheme that should make her independently wealthy.
Within that framework, Hellman fearlessly depicts an array of the most despicable elements of human nature. Also on display are the putrefying corpses lying hidden in the closets and cellars of clean, respectable families, in addition to the festering rot found in the sewers underneath the streets of prosperous, civilized nations.
The Hollywood touch
Admittedly, the great-looking Hollywood version of The Little Foxes – produced by independent mogul Samuel Goldwyn, with cinematography by Citizen Kane’s Gregg Toland, art direction by Lost Horizon’s Stephen Goosson, costume design by Warner Bros. veteran Orry-Kelly – had a few cubes of sugar added to the narrative in the form of a youthful romance between Richard Carlson, as the idealistic journalist David Hewitt (not found in the play), and movie newcomer/Goldwyn contract actress Teresa Wright as Regina’s daughter, Alexandra.
Even so, The Little Foxes remains as potent an indictment of greed and power lust as the original play. That’s partly because Lillian Hellman herself penned the screenplay (with the uncredited assistance of Dorothy Parker [who reportedly suggested the play’s title[1]]; her husband, Alan Campbell; and Hellman’s former husband Arthur Kober) and partly because Goldwyn gathered a first-rate cast that, under William Wyler’s unflinching hand, delivers an onslaught of mesmerizing performances.
Model of self-control
Bette Davis, for instance, an actress hardly known for her underplaying, is a model of self-control as Regina Giddens – her third and final characterization under Wyler’s guidance, following Jezebel (Best Actress Academy Award winner, 1938) and The Letter (Best Actress nominee, 1940).
Needless to say, this reviewer never got to see Tallulah Bankhead’s stage Regina, but it’s all but impossible to believe that the Alabama-born Bankhead, no matter how good (and how good her Southern accent), could have been more effective than the Massachusetts-born, Warner Bros.-trained Davis (on loan to Goldwyn).[2]
Just like her unrepentant murderess Leslie Crosbie in The Letter, Davis’ Regina is a woman who, in a man’s world, knows what she craves – “I was lonely when I was young. Not in the way people usually mean. I was lonely for all the things I wasn’t gonna get” – and who has the dauntlessness to do whatever it takes to achieve her objective.
If that means keeping her true feelings in check, so be it. She will play her part. If that means there’s a price to be paid, whether by herself or by others, so be it. She will pay and she will do all in her power to make others pay as well.
Watching Davis’ cool, smart, and unabashedly ruthless go-getting/self-serving women in The Letter and The Little Foxes, this reviewer found himself at their mercy. In fact, as portrayed by Bette Davis these two “villainesses” had my total sympathy – going on to also gain both my respect and my admiration.
Fantastic ensemble
Just about as compelling – if less charming – are businesscrooks Charles Dingle and Carl Benton Reid, both reprising their Broadway roles (the latter in his film debut) as Regina’s rapacious brothers, Ben and Oscar Hubbard.
Also memorably reprising his stage role is movie newcomer Dan Duryea[3], whose Leo Hubbard, Oscar’s no-good son and first cousin Alexandra’s prospective husband (much to her disgust), comes across as a prototype of Duryea’s future film noir scumbags.
Miraculously holding their own against The Little Foxes’ heavies are Patricia Collinge (also recreating her stage role while making her film debut) as Oscar’s/Leo’s long-suffering wife/mother, Birdie; Hollywood veteran Herbert Marshall as Regina’s upright but physically weak husband Horace (Marshall also happened to be Leslie Crosbie’s cuckolded husband in The Letter); and Teresa Wright as the mellow but fast-maturing Alexandra.[4]
Extraordinary villains
But in all fairness, the three Hubbard siblings – Regina, Ben, Oscar – are The Little Foxes’ true (anti-)heroes. They are the ones who propel the plot forward, and whose goal-oriented mindset evinces steely strength and determination.[5]
When Regina proudly asserts that people like her and her kin have built America – a statement surely uttered by other Reginas in every other country throughout history – all one can do is resignedly nod in agreement.
The Little Foxes (1941) cast & crew
Director: William Wyler
Screenplay: Lillian Hellman; from Lillian Hellman’s 1939 play. Additional scenes and dialogue by Arthur Kober, Dorothy Parker & Alan Campbell
Cast:
Bette Davis … Regina [Hubbard] Giddens
Herbert Marshall … Horace Giddens
Teresa Wright … Alexandra Giddens
Richard Carlson … David Hewitt
Dan Duryea … Leo Hubbard
Patricia Collinge … Birdie Hubbard
Charles Dingle … Ben Hubbard
Carl Benton Reid … Oscar Hubbard
Jessie Grayson … Addie
John Marriott … Cal
Russell Hicks … William MarshallCinematography: Gregg Toland
Film Editing: Daniel Mandell
Music: Meredith Willson[6]
Production Design: Stephen Goosson
Producer: Samuel Goldwyn
Running Time: 116 min.
Country: United States
Academy Awards
The Little Foxes received nine Academy Award nominations (1941):
- Best Picture
- Best Director (William Wyler)
- Best Actress (Bette Davis)
- Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Collinge)
- Best Supporting Actress (Teresa Wright)
- Best Writing, Screenplay (Lillian Hellman)
- Best Film Editing (Daniel Mandell)
- Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture (Meredith Willson)
- Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White (art director: Stephen Goosson; set decorator: Howard Bristol)
Note: Both Teresa Wright and Patricia Collinge received Oscar nominations for their film debuts.
Other awards
The Little Foxes received a trio of other mentions:
- National Board of Review: Top Ten Films and Best Acting (Bette Davis & Patricia Collinge, alongside performers in various other movies).
“The Little Foxes (1941) Review” notes/references
Where’s the title from?
[1] The title The Little Foxes is from the King James Bible’s Song of Solomon (2:15): “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes.”
An aside: Our Vines Have Tender Grapes is the title of a 1945 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release directed by Roy Rowland, and starring Edward G. Robinson and Margaret O’Brien.
Davis does Bankhead
[2] Bette Davis does a bit of Tallulah Bankhead in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Broadway-set 1950 Oscar winner All About Eve, which earned Davis her eighth Best Actress Oscar nomination and that year’s New York Film Critics Circle Award.
Reportedly, Bankhead wasn’t at all happy that she didn’t get to recreate her Broadway role in the movie version.
Dan Duryea’s de facto movie debut
[3] According to unverified online sources, Dan Duryea had a bit part in Louis J. Gasnier’s 1934 Spanish-language musical comedy El tango en Broadway.
But for all purposes, The Little Foxes marked Duryea’s de facto big-screen debut.
Other original players & Regina Giddens portrayers
[4] In the original stage version of The Little Foxes, Frank Conroy played Horace Giddens and Florence Williams was Alexandra. Later in 1939, Williams was replaced by Eugenia Rawls.
The other actresses who played Regina Giddens on Broadway were Anne Bancroft (1967), Elizabeth Taylor (1981), Stockard Channing (1997), and Laura Linney/Cynthia Nixon (2017; alternating between Regina and Birdie Hubbard).
Geraldine Page played Regina Giddens a couple of times: On tour (1968) and at the Academy Festival Theatre in Lake Forest, Illinois (1978).
Greer Garson – an Oscar winner like Bette Davis, Anne Bancroft, Geraldine Page, and Elizabeth Taylor – played Regina in a 1956 adaptation of The Little Foxes for the anthology television series Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Another Part of the Forest
[5] Lillian Hellman’s excellent prequel to The Little Foxes, Another Part of the Forest opened at Broadway’s Fulton Theatre in November 1946. Future Oscar winner Patricia Neal (Hud, 1963) played the young Regina, opposite Leo Genn as Ben and Scott McKay as Oscar. Percy Waram and Mildred Dunnock were cast as their parents, Marcus and Lavinia Hubbard.
Universal Pictures’ 1948 movie version was far less acclaimed – and is far less well-remembered – than Goldwyn’s RKO-distributed The Little Foxes. Perhaps the problem lay in the fact that Hellman didn’t adapt her own work the second time around. Vladimir Pozner was credited for the task.
Directed by Michael Gordon, Another Part of the Forest stars Fredric March as the patriarch Marcus Hubbard, Ann Blyth as Regina, Edmond O’Brien as Ben, Dan Duryea as Oscar (Leo’s father in The Little Foxes), Florence Eldridge (Fredric March’s wife and frequent stage partner) as the long-suffering matriarch Lavinia, and Betsy Blair as the young Birdie.
Meredith Willson
[6] The Little Foxes’ composer, Meredith Willson, is best known for writing the book, music, and lyrics for the 1957 Broadway musical smash The Music Man.
A Warner Bros. release, the big-screen version came out in 1962. Both play and film starred Robert Preston.
Dorothy Parker suggesting the title The Little Foxes is mentioned in the September 1941 issue of Life magazine and in Gabriel Miller’s biography William Wyler: The Life and Films of Hollywood’s Most Celebrated Director (University Press of Kentucky, 2013).
The Little Foxes (1941) movie credits via the American Film Institute (AFI) Catalog website.
Teresa Wright, Herbert Marshall, and Bette Davis The Little Foxes images: Samuel Goldwyn Productions | RKO Radio Pictures.
“The Little Foxes (1941) Review: Stupendous Bette Davis” last updated in December 2024.